Ten Kingdoms by Emdash project

[emdash]

The feedback I've seen for other artists here has been remarkably constructive, so I'm hoping you'll have some helpful thoughts for my project as well. This is my first deck of cards and my desire is for the deck to be good for play, magic and flourishes.

I've finished my first round of Queens and want to get the elements right here before moving on to the other courts.

Fingers crossed these files render okay here!

Do the four pieces feel balanced as a set to you? Are there two for instance that feel too similar, or is there one that is too left field of the others?  Any thoughts on the colour scheme? For you folks with Asian heritage - have I done justice to the faces? Are there any I should take another shot at? I've taken a lot of artistic license with the hair and clothes, as I don't want to be restricted by historical accuracy, but are there any elements that strike you as ridiculous?

If you do magic or flourishes, are there any graphical touches I should add (or remove!) that would make the artwork support how you ultimately use the deck?

Thank you for your thoughts! The Kings are already sketched, but I'd like to feel settled with the Queens before filling in the King bodies.

[bhong]

My suggestion is that you probably want to keep the proportions the same across all the cards so ideally the heads are roughly the same size. At the moment, the Queen of Hearts, since she's looking straight on, makes her face appear quite a bit bigger. I think having that scaled down a bit would help.

The suggestion on colours is maybe have it so that one colour is more dominate per a suit and that is kept throughout the court cards. For example, the Hearts lean more heavily on purple. That way it helps make the courts more recognizable at first glance.

I am unsure of how you're going to render the final artwork. If you are creating all the works traditionally and then scaling them in with some colour adjustments as the final artwork, I'd suggest make the artwork 2-3 times bigger than the actual size. That will help all the artwork tighten up really well.

Good luck!

[emdash]

Thank you! I've been exploring the colour situation the past few days, so this is a great thought. I'm planning to use the same pattern elements across the suits as well - at least that's the plan.

Rescaling the QoH is a good thought too, it will give me more flexibility with the body.

Brilliant stuff. Very much appreciated!